ROHAN%ASTRO.SPAN@STAR.STANFORD.EDU (05/17/89)
Please excuse me if all these questions have been asked/answered before I am new to the Info-AppleTalk list. I am interested in the limitations of an AppleTalk network. Specifically, I am not just looking for physical limits, but also for suggested limits due to degradation from excess network traffic. The use of the planned network in question will be more towards printing and maybe communications with minicomputers over a FastPath bridge. File serving may be down the road, however. I have seen a reference that says that 32 users can be attached using LocalTalk, and 18 using PhoneNet wiring (daisychained). One question I have is whether a Star Controller can increase this number (on PhoneNet). Specifically can the number increase to 50 or more? Are there other suggested ways of increasing the number of nodes? (I am also curious, on whether a Star Controller limits any communications within a branch of the star, or does it mindlessly pass it on to the rest of the network?) How many terminal sessions can a FastPath gateway handle between a Mac and a Vax? (Also, for 'down the road', how much fileserver activity can it handle?) Are these terminal sessions equivalent in speed to a 9600 baud line? As an alternative, could a AppleTalk serial port server like C-Server be used to connect to a mini or terminal server? Does anyone out there have any realworld numbers and experiences to the above that they can give me? Off the head, estimates are welcome. Please send all messages directly to me, and I will summarize for the net. Rick Rohan, (B12) Lockheed Engineering & Sciences Co. 2400 Nasa Road One Houston, TX 77258 (713) 333-6245